Enemy Dearest

The skeletal, middle-aged clerk slides us a single room key, and I pretend not to notice when he gives us a once over. It’s obvious we don’t have luggage and we’re here for a good time. As soon as he takes a call, we all but sprint toward the elevator, and the second the doors close behind us, I pin her to the wall and taste her lips. Her mouth curls against mine as she runs her fingers through my hair. A moment later we’re deposited on our floor.

“Race you,” she teases.

“You don’t even know our room number,” I scoop her into my arms, grabbing a handful of her perfect ass in the process.

I don’t know what town we’re in. I hardly remember the name of this hotel. But I’ll remember this moment for the rest of my life.

We reach our room and let the door slam behind us. And despite the fact that the AC is blasting at sixty-five degrees, we waste no time stripping down. Tonight, we’re fucking like the world is ending—because in a way, it is.

Sheridan perches on the edge of an oak writing desk. I shove the rolling swivel chair aside and fall to my knees, spreading her thighs and stroking her wetness with the tip of my tongue. Grabbing a fistful of my hair, she releases a soft moan—just as her phone begins to ring.

“Ignore it,” I tell her, my breath warm against her slit.

She bites her lip, nodding, hips rocking in sync with my prodding tongue.

A minute later, the phone rings again.

“Keep going.” She tightens her grip on me. “I’m so close …”

But it’s the third time in a row that steals the moment from us.

She groans, sliding off the table, leaving her taste to linger on my lips.

“I’m sorry. Let me just see who’s blowing up my phone …” Sheridan locates her bag in the dark, then her phone. The screen glows bright against her face, illuminating a concerned expression that wasn’t there before. “It’s Mama. Hold on. She left a voicemail.”

She presses play and holds the phone to her ear, and while it’s not on speaker, her mother is so frantic and loud, I can hear every single word.

“Sheridan, you need to come home immediately,” she says. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she almost sounds tearful. “I don’t know where you are, but I know you’re not at Adriana’s because I just called her. Come home. Now. It’s an emergency.”

Her wide, shiny eyes lock with mine from across the room. She doesn’t have to say anything. We throw our clothes on and skip the check-out desk on our way out—room’s already paid for.

I get us back to Meredith Hills in a fraction of the time it took to leave, and I drop her off at the library parking lot, next to her car. She hasn’t said a word since we left the hotel, and I can only assume she’s thinking the worst.

“It’s going to be okay,” I tell her, but I don’t know that. No one ever does.

Leaning over the console, she presses her cheek against mine, her lashes fluttering. “I love you, August. The words have been on the tip of my tongue all day, and I never found the right time to tell you that. But in case I don’t see you again after this … I wanted you to know that.”

Her words breathe me to life—and shatter me at the same time.

“I love you too,” I tell her. “And you’ll see me again.”

It’s yet another thing I don’t know to be true. Not because I wouldn’t move heaven and earth to see her again, but because her mother is her entire world, and Sheridan would sacrifice her own happiness if it meant keeping her mom safe.

She climbs out of my car and into hers.

Within seconds, she becomes nothing but a pair of red taillights fading into the dark. I hold my breath, letting it burn. Paralyzed by the heaviness of this moment, I sit in my idling car for what feels like a lifetime, replaying our day together a hundred times before I have the energy to drive away.

If I never see her again, it’s going to be me who dies of a broken heart.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Sheridan

* * *

I find Mama at the kitchen table beside a pile of mail. There’s no ambulance in the driveway. My father’s car is gone. None of this is screams urgent crisis.

“I don’t understand,” I say. “You said there was an emergency?”

She’s breathless. An anxious kind of breathless. And her eyes are bloodshot and swollen. She’s been crying.

“Take a seat, Sheridan,” she says, voice raspy. I take the chair beside her, hands trembling because I’ve never seen her so calm yet so upset at the same time. And the fact that it didn’t work her into a spell is a straight-up miracle. “We received a bill in the mail from Centurion.” She slides it toward me. “Which I thought was odd because you’d said we were recipients of some kind of grant. I’ll admit, it seemed too good to be true, but I trusted you. I believed you. Anyway, it was nothing but a standard invoice showing this month’s fees have been paid … but I was about to toss it in the trash when I saw this.” She points to the name at the bottom. “Sheridan, why does it list August Monreaux as our payor?”